May 13, 2021

“At what time of day do you think Jesus ascended?” That’s what a parishioner asked me earlier today. I’d never thought about the question before, but I quickly had a guess: 9am or 3pm. Those are the appointed times for the morning and evening sacrifices.

In the Ascension, Jesus performs a priestly act. Luke tells us that Jesus lifted up His hands and blessed them. Perhaps the sun illuminated the scars where the nails had pierced Him. What did Jesus say in His blessing? It’s not recorded, but I imagine He said what He once instructed Aaron to say: “The LORD bless you and keep you. The LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” Or more likely, something like, “When I go to My Father, I will send to You another Comforter, the Holy Spirit. I bless you and keep you; My face shines upon you and is gracious to you; My countenance is lifted up on you, and I give you My peace.”

We can think of the entire ministry of the Lord Jesus as one great priestly act. Like young Samuel, JESUS was set apart for service in the Lord’s house from childhood.

The priest does not come before the altar or enter the holy place without first washing with water. The Lord Jesus, before He begins His service, is washed by John in the Jordan. John was himself from a priestly family, the son of Zacharias. His own birth was announced in the holy place by the angel.

Thus washed, He cleanses the earthly temple, making it suitable again for sacrifice.

A priest cleanses from sin and readmits lepers to the community. A priest feeds the people with the sanctified grain offering—bread. He gives the people to drink from the drink offerings. This great Priest, our Lord Jesus, blesses bread and feeds the multitude. From the jars of ritual purification He gives wine for the nuptial feast.

The deficiency of the Levitical priesthood, though, was the necessity of repeating again and again, and again and again, the sacrifices. Evening and morning, the lamb. The sin offerings, the peace offerings, the festival offerings of Passover, Pentecost, and Booths. And the high priest, once each year, entered the most holy place with the blood of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. But it was never enough. 

For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. [Heb. 10]

But there is a blood that takes away sins, once for all. “It is finished,” Jesus says regarding His priestly sacrifice. He is both priest and victim, shepherd and lamb. The blood of the God-man, the Son of God who is both fully divine and fully human – His blood cleanses us from all sins.

The Ascension is not Jesus going away from us. The Ascension is the culmination of the priestly act. Having slaughtered the pure and holy victim, Jesus goes with His own blood into the true Holy of Holies, before the throne of the Father.

In the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle of Moses was the Ark of the Covenant. Made of acacia wood, it was overlaid with gold. That top was the throne of the LORD, called the mercy seat. On either side were golden angels, wings spread. There, with clouds of incense swirling, the high priest went once each year with the blood of the sacrifice.

Surrounded by clouds, the ascending Lord Jesus enters the heavenly Holy of Holies, and with His blood presents the perfect sacrifice which takes away the sin of the world.

From then until the end of the world, Jesus serves as High Priest. The Divine Service is not a strange and foreign rite disconnected from the priestly service of tabernacle and temple. It is the culmination of those sacrifices. Here we offer no sacrifices of animals, but the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Here the ascended Lord Jesus distributes the fruit of His sacrifice. The body and blood once for all offered on the cross He distributes in earthly time.

Our High Priest fills the heavens and all things. It is no impossible thing for Him to be present here on our altar, and at the other altars of the faithful around the world and across time. The JESUS who stands before the Father with the eternal sacrifice is also present with us, in the meal of His priestly service, and He is with us with His Word and Spirit in all the moments of our life.

So what time of day did the Ascension happen? I don’t know, but the time of sacrifice is as fitting a time as any. For Jesus went into the Holiest Place (of which the temple is but a shadow) and sat down on the mercy seat, the atonement of the world being accomplished. +INJ+